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[Raphael]

It's Monday Morning
(It's Monday Morning)
Hip Hip Hurray!
(Hip Hip Hurray!)
Let's get going
it's a brand new day!


(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

[Raphael]

27 guests on the ZBB? Is there some kind of DDOS thing going on?

[Man in Space]

27 guests on the ZBB?

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

[rotting bones]

1. I wonder if it's possible to speculate about the positive qualities of the Good by reading the events in de Sade's novel Justine through the metaphysics of splitting and joining in The Elements of Theology by Proclus.

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHAqKWyHWmM

[Ares Land]

1. I wonder if it's possible to speculate about the positive qualities of the Good by reading the events in de Sade's novel Justine through the metaphysics of splitting and joining in The Elements of Theology by Proclus.

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHAqKWyHWmM

What are the metaphysics of splitting?

I've read, well, skimmed through Sade ages ago. There are a few interesting bit of philosophy here and there, notably his defense of atheism.

Other than that I'm afraid his fiction is horribly tedious (and, yeah, pretty messed up).

[rotting bones]

1. I wonder if it's possible to speculate about the positive qualities of the Good by reading the events in de Sade's novel Justine through the metaphysics of splitting and joining in The Elements of Theology by Proclus.

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHAqKWyHWmM

What are the metaphysics of splitting?

I've read, well, skimmed through Sade ages ago. There are a few interesting bit of philosophy here and there, notably his defense of atheism.

Other than that I'm afraid his fiction is horribly tedious (and, yeah, pretty messed up).

Greek Neoplatonists were obsessed with what it means for two things to be the united or distinct. A lot of this convoluted discourse was later applied to what it means for Jesus to be God. Plato started it with the Parmenides: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plat ... rPlaDed134 If the One can be shown to be a Platonic Form, that serves as a lynchpin for the entire Platonic Theory of Forms.

Proclus expanded this "reasoning" into a book called The Elements of Theology that seeks to define the Neoplatonic conception of the One in relation to its emanations in the great chain of being. (Warning: Hegel was called the German Proclus.)

Since this reasoning traces the Form of the Good, I was wondering what the Good would look like in Sade's world, where only virtue is punished and only vice is rewarded in proportion to its viciousness. I used to find Sade boring when my life was relatively stable, but now that the news has succeeded in terrifying me, I find his writings kind of cathartic. If you fear the worst, his writing shows you a consequence even worse than your wildest imagination.

I still think his "philosophy" is a childish oversimplification of the real world, but the same is true of Platonism. Despite this, some of his outrageous statements aren't wrong. I think it's quite reasonable to be cynical about many of the platitudes that pass for wisdom these days.

[rotting bones]

27 guests on the ZBB? Is there some kind of DDOS thing going on?

Maybe make the site inaccessible to robots?

[rotting bones]

Watching DS9 S6 E24 Time's Orphan. Isn't it better for Molly to be with a therapist than alone in the past?

[Travis B.]

27 guests on the ZBB? Is there some kind of DDOS thing going on?

Maybe make the site inaccessible to robots?

Malicious robots tend to not pay attention to robots.txt.

Edit: and captchas are annoying as all hell.

[rotting bones]

Malicious robots tend to not pay attention to robots.txt.

Edit: and captchas are annoying as all hell.

Yeah, I was about to suggest IP verification by CAPTCHA for guests before I saw your edit.

I guess there's a tradeoff. If there's a serious threat to the site's stability, an annoying, one time CAPTCHA for guests is the only alternative I can think of right now. It could be as simple as a 1 digit arithmetic problem. If you don't want to deal with that, and you want to stay anonymous, you could log in as a hidden user.

[rotting bones]

Watching DS9 S6 E24 Time's Orphan. Isn't it better for Molly to be with a therapist than alone in the past?

The in-episode justification seems to be that she can't be in a shuttle for long. But they are taking her back to the past in a runabout. Why can't they take her to the therapist while sedated?

[rotting bones]

I like how the Chaldean Oracles describe the high gods as "glittering with intellectual sections". It reminds me of Grob Gob Glob Grod from Adventure Time. This is definitely one of the most interesting lost texts of antiquity.

[Man in Space]

I had an idea for a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror that would not leave me alone. I reproduce it here, but like a Guild Navigator, my mind goes to strange places…there are funny elements but overall it is Not Funny, and that is by design.

More: show

Part I: CHER-[ANNOYED GRUNT]-BYL. The Springfield nuclear reactor melts down. The hospital staff throws the firefighter coats in the room because they’re radioactive, but they are too heavy for the floor and fall through. The Mayor needs to get a truck to broadcast a message to evacuate, but the only car that has a working megaphone is Krusty’s clown car. Chief Wiggum enlists the local schoolchildren to do the animal cull, and Bart has to shoot his own dog.

Part II: IN NED FLANDERS FIELDS. Basically Springfield is in the middle of World War I.

PART III: THE OBSOLETE HOMER. (As the name implies, this owes a great debt to the Twilight Zone episode of a similar name.) At his birthday celebration, Homer is transported to an interdimensional tribunal of Homers. He, Homer Prime, is declared obsolete because he has managed to basically wreak havoc on the Simpsons Multiverse. The Homers try to attack him, but he escapes the courtroom only to find himself in a maze. But…just when all is lost, the tentacled, floating Homer from that one extended couch gag pauses. He has Memories. We see the memory section from that couch gag, and Tentacle Homer decides that this is Wrong. His tentacles expand and grow, like a fractal or a gorgon star, and he basically absorbs/melts/surreally destroys the Multiverse Homers until he is left dying in front of Homer Prime. Homer Prime asks why. “I have…memories…you have…family…goodbye.” And Tentacle Homer sends Homer Prime back to his home universe.

Part IV: [ANNOYED GRUNT]-VINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY. The nuclear reactor is down for maintenance and Springfield is without power. Homer decides to grill some hamburgers before the meat spoils. He reënters the house to find the power back on, and the news is playing. Some meat is being recalled due to mad cow. Homer looks at the packaging. He has eaten of the meat. “D’oh.” We cut to the newscast explaining further what BSE is. Smash cut to Skinner and Chalmers in the Steamed Hams scene. Skinner is looking at the Krusty Burgers in shock. “SEYMOUR!!!!” bellows Chalmers.

This next part would be mostly ad-libbed with Dan Castellanetta and…Marge’s VA…responding in-character to an IRL doctor. The doctor explains that Homer is infected with prions. Marge asks “Is there anything we can do?” The doctor says “Pray…that it takes him quickly.”

We see a montage of Homer as time goes on. Gradually we see the light going out in his eyes, his faculties leaving him. (Ideally, Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s “Moya” would start during the doctor’s visit, the montage starting around 3:40 before fading to a whine around 7:40.) It fades out into the shrill whine of tinnitus as we finally see Homer slumped over in a chair like Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III.

With one final annoyed grunt, he falls out of the chair. Homer Simpson is dead. Lisa finds him first; she wanted to play her saxophone for him. She summons Bart, who is in denial and keeps trying to get his dad to “stop the joke”. Marge comes in with a tray of dinner, but slowly drops it as her hand goes up to her mouth. All is silent. Then, smash cut to a wide shot of Springfield as the piercing wail of her grief echoes.

Because this is Springfield, Mr. Burns gives the eulogy. He ruthlessly mocks Homer. The audience laughs. Cut to Ned Flanders. Ned Flanders is not laughing. He is staring at the cross over the pulpit. He slowly rises to his feet and approaches the lectern, staring down Burns with a furious gaze that could melt steel. Burns backs down. Flanders assumes the lectern.

Flanders begins by saying that the Bible tells us that a man who abandons his family is not appreciated. He then goes on about what Homer did for his family—“Who rescued you from the well, Bart?” (“Sting!” Lisa elbows him. “Dad!”) “Who supported your saxophone playing, Lisa?” (“Dad.”) “Who got you that Balenciaga dress and got us in Paris for Fashion Week, Marge?” (“Homie.”) Flanders then bitches Springfield out for how they treated Homer, saying that surely he is in Heaven now.

Smash cut to Homer standing at the gates of Hell, as imagined by Rodin (the Thinker was for that project), except every figure is Homer. “The wages of sin is death” is writ in flaming capital letters in an arc around the gates. They open, and a phantasmagoric hand composed of writhing, agonized Homers reaches out to claim him.

A hand touches Homer’s shoulder, and all is silent. “Who are you?” Homer asks. “On the night He was betrayed, I denied Him three times,” says St. Peter, “and yet there was still a place prepared for me. Come, there is a place for you too.” The Pearly Gates silently open, and St. Peter escorts Homer into the eternal. Roll credits.

This plagued me as I worked yesterday. I could hardly concentrate on my duties because this kept boiling over in a thousand different ways, each worse than the last. These are some of the things that terrify me. Especially Part IV…I’ve always been known as the Smart Guy, and the thought of that being bled away from me via a thousand cuts and being unable to do anything about it…when my Babcia died, it wasn’t her body that failed her. It was her mind. She recognized me the last time I saw her, two days before she died, and that was a blessing and a mercy. Either I die by 60 (likely, given my suite of health issues) or I make it to her age and my mind becomes void. I do not relish the thought.

[Raphael]

This plagued me as I worked yesterday. I could hardly concentrate on my duties because this kept boiling over in a thousand different ways, each worse than the last. These are some of the things that terrify me. Especially Part IV…I’ve always been known as the Smart Guy, and the thought of that being bled away from me via a thousand cuts and being unable to do anything about it…when my Babcia died, it wasn’t her body that failed her. It was her mind. She recognized me the last time I saw her, two days before she died, and that was a blessing and a mercy. Either I die by 60 (likely, given my suite of health issues) or I make it to her age and my mind becomes void. I do not relish the thought.

Ugh. I wish I could say anything that might relieve the terror a bit, but I can't think of anything.

[Raphael]

Random musing:

I apparently don't really do "being inspired".

OK, I've sometimes been inspired in the sense that one thing I had heard of gave me the idea for another thing.

But I don't think I've ever been "inspired" in the sense that people mean when they say something like "this person's great achievements are so inspiring!"

How unusual is that?

[Ares Land]

But I don't think I've ever been "inspired" in the sense that people mean when they say something like "this person's great achievements are so inspiring!"

I think that's mostly empty PR verbiage. You see it a lot on LinkedIn -- a good bullshit detector.

[Raphael]

But I don't think I've ever been "inspired" in the sense that people mean when they say something like "this person's great achievements are so inspiring!"

I think that's mostly empty PR verbiage. You see it a lot on LinkedIn -- a good bullshit detector.

It seems to be used in political rhetoric, too, at least in the US.

[Raphael]

Out of curiosity, when physicists write papers or other pieces of scientific or academic writing, and they refer to the classical Laws of Motion, are they expected to put a citation saying something like "Newton 1687" into the footnotes?

[bradrn]

Out of curiosity, when physicists write papers or other pieces of scientific or academic writing, and they refer to the classical Laws of Motion, are they expected to put a citation saying something like "Newton 1687" into the footnotes?

As I understand it, information which is widely-known generally doesn’t require a citation. This of course applies to Newton’s Laws of Motion, but also more generally to the basic concepts of any particular subfield. That being said, it wouldn’t actually be wrong to do so, just unusual.

[Raphael]

Out of curiosity, when physicists write papers or other pieces of scientific or academic writing, and they refer to the classical Laws of Motion, are they expected to put a citation saying something like "Newton 1687" into the footnotes?

As I understand it, information which is widely-known generally doesn’t require a citation. This of course applies to Newton’s Laws of Motion, but also more generally to the basic concepts of any particular subfield. That being said, it wouldn’t actually be wrong to do so, just unusual.

Thank you!